One of the things that frustrates me in the debates that surround Emerging/Emergent Church is the need that some people have to see a cohesive movement with leaders... Ok there are voices that are influential but most of what they say is a snapshot on their particular journey not as a manifesto... maybe this need is because so many of the anti-EC voices come from churches built around a charismatic leader and/or a churches where truth is taught from the front by an 'expert', 'anointed one' etc... anyway one term that has been flashing around the Mission world in regard to those who are exploring what it might mean to be a faith community in pm/emerging culture is 'entrepreneur'... now I have never thought of myself in those terms, it sounds a bit capitalist for my sensibilities! But I found this passage from Ann Morisy's 'Journeying out' (2004) helpful... you may too...
Economists have already borrowed the concept of 'adaptive zones' from evolutionary biology. Joseph Schumpeter, in particular, drew parallels with the biologists' recognition of 'adaptive zones' in his economic models. He observed that times of economic boom occur when swarms of entrepreneurs try to implement an innovation at the same time. However, those who enter this new space and pursue the new opportunities discover that their business models, formed and nurtured former practices and processes, are ill-adapted to cope with the new. Those who survive, and go on to flourish in the 'adaptive zone' are those who can also transform their structures and systems to accommodate the new opportunities.
...why is this helpful to me? Because it goes some way to explain how EC has grown... many of us who describe ourselves in the terms now associated with EC felt the way we did before we had ever heard of Emergent or Brian McLaren! We were already swarming, trying to work out what faith could look like... the 'adaptive zone' - post-christendom, was obvious to us way before the term was common parlance... but are we entrepreneurs?
... entrepreneurs are people who see the the negative spaces left by worlds drifting apart... entrepreneurs are people who have an itch, a sense of displacement from the status quo and an excitement about future possibilities... entrepreneurs are innovative and creative... entrepreneurs are people who step into the gaps with a degree of uncertainty but prepared to take the risk... entrepreneurs are people who refuse to held back by conservatism and cautionary words... entrepreneurs have faith, they believe in what they are doing...
I guess maybe I am an entrepreneur, I believe, not in 'Emerging Church' but in God's calling to step into the gap between cultures, to look for the new wine skins... oh well back to the swarm!
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